Herman rose with the dignity of a lumbago victim. “How do you do?” he replied in a hushed voice and held out his fin. Our heroine shook it and for a minute she thought somebody had slipped her a dead eel. “I am grieved,” spoke Herman, “to see you pursuing your sinful course in this manner. I had hoped that our last meeting would cause you to see the error of your ways.” “Why the shredded wheat over the kisser?” inquired our heroine eyeing the false mustache. “Take ’em off, poison ivy, before somebody throws you into a tank with the rest of the walruses.” Our hero felt a little dizzy but his duty remained plain. “It would give me great pleasure,” he said, “to take you out of this place and bring you home to your parents.” Cutie felt a sudden curiosity. “Come on, Mr. Pupick,” she invited him, “let’s crawl.” Herman found himself oozing out of his chair. He was in a trance. He made a last effort and tried to steady himself by thinking of Mrs. Pupick. But all he could remember about her was that her knees looked like a couple of pineapples. Our hero crossed his good eye and let himself go. The music was raising hell with his complexes. When Cutie put her arms around him she thought she had grabbed hold of a sack of cement. “You are making a mistake,” our heroine grunted, “the idea is that we are going to have a dance, not a tug of war.” But Herman was beyond the power of reason. As his smeller leaned against Cutie’s corn colored hair, he let out one gasp and swallowed his false mustache. When he felt our little mamma’s shimmy begin to shake, Herman thought a bolt of lightning was playing a tattoo on him. For a few minutes this flat wheeled caboose of gloom couldn’t figure out which part of him was his feet. “What’s the matter?” Cutie whispered, “you are behaving like a clam diver with the hiccoughs. Have you lost control?” Herman didn’t know exactly what was being said. He had grown so hot that his glass eye was beginning to melt around the edges. Just then the management turned the lights down and everything became green. “Oh, God,” our hero groaned. And then all he knew was that somebody had tied him to a pin wheel as big as a barn door and set a match to it. He was going good at the rate of seven hundred revolutions to the second when somebody else shoved a bomb down his throat and he blew up. SIXTH MEASURE _In which Herman Pupick Skids off the Straight and Narrow_ SIXTH MEASURE When Herman recovered what a practical joker would call his senses he found himself in a taxi cab. He felt something was terribly wrong. Opening his glim he saw Cutie. She was wiping his face with a sponge. “Where am I?” murmured our hero. “You are safe for the time being,” Cutie answered, “if the posse don’t locate our tracks.” Herman shuddered and realized that he was covered with blood. He looked like a tomato somebody had thrown away. “What has happened?” he groaned.